Tucson Weekly: Permacultural Shift (November 6

Establishing A New Model For Development On The Edge Of Marana
By Kay Sather
ON THE WEST side of Scenic Drive, where it forms the boundary between Marana and unincorporated Pima County, a rammed-earth home sits on a low slope against the Tucson Mountains.
A gravel-filled pathway--doubling as underground floodwater storage during the monsoons--winds down toward an old stone building, where a handful of students are learning ways to use permaculture in their own yards.
Beyond this small center of human activity, all the way up to the ridge on the west, lies untouched ironwood/saguaro desert. Untouched, that is, except for the scar of an old road and carefully placed earth berms and cages of rocks designed to capture some of the water from the large watershed, and to minimize erosion.
Currents On the east side of this same road, however, in a 23-acre ironwood forest with trees as old as 400 years, workers pull saguaros from the ground for transplant. And if the average holds true, more than half of these plants will die.
They're preparing the property for full-scale grading and the construction of concrete slabs to support prefabricated houses, designed without consideration of the site.
Ironically, this land is part of an area called "El Cortaro" (from cortar, "to cut down") by the conquistadors, who obtained wood here. Ancient stumps can still be found under vigorous trees which have regrown from their roots. Now those trees are about to be erased from the land.
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN such radically different approaches to living and land use come face to face across the road?
In this case, not quite the usual win-or-lose battle.
"We'd like to work with the town (of Marana) and developers," says Barbara Rose, the woman behind the budding permaculture center and owner of the 20-acre property. "In the end, it's how well we work together that will make or break us."
Rose has learned how tough that can be.
It was more than 10 years ago, about the time of convicted felon Charlie Keating's land acquisitions in the area, that she joined with her widely spaced neighbors to oppose rezoning for two Marana-specific plans, one of which (Pima Farms North) included the property across the road. The effort took the newly formed Pima Farms Neighborhood Association to the state Supreme Court before it failed. There was one small victory for the neighborhood, however: The Court imposed a 100-yard undisturbed native-plant buffer zone along Scenic Drive.
The land sat relatively undisturbed for a decade under its new status, weathering the economic seesaw of the mid-'80s and Keating's financial demise, until one day in March when Rose noticed a crew tagging cacti--some well into the buffer zone. Rose pointed this out to the landscape architect, Mike Leese, of SLA Associates, who told her "not to worry," that they planned to "enhance and densify" the vegetation between the development and the road.
However, when she obtained a copy of the plan submitted by the developer, the Myers Group, Rose discovered drawings calling for construction of a 50-foot-wide cement-sided drainage channel within the buffer.
Marana city planners told her that if engineers said the channel was necessary for flood control on the site, it would be built--despite the court ruling of a decade ago.
"That was the beginning of my full-time job without pay," she laughs. Along with a team of permaculture and hydrology consultants, Rose surveyed the watershed affecting the area--which includes her own property--and determined the development could manage the flow with less invasive measures.
They presented their analysis to Myers Group representative Richard Hickey. As a result, his engineering team was able to substantially reduce the channeled drainage on the plan. Hickey signed an agreement to work with Rose to reduce to an absolute minimum any disturbance of the 100-yard buffer.
"That's got to be some kind of 'first,' " she says, though she would have liked to take it a step further. She believes water harvesting/erosion prevention techniques, if employed throughout the watershed, could reduce the flooding danger, thus making channelization unnecessary.
DESPITE THESE EARLY successes, the spirit of cooperation has been eroded by a disagreement over the number of native plants reported by Myers. Marana's native plant permit application calls for a comprehensive inventory of virtually all native plants except chaparral. Myers reports a rough total of 2,000 such plants in the 18 acres to be disturbed.
Rose believes the number is closer to 9,000. She says that despite repeated calls to the Marana Planning and Zoning Commission about their approval process and agenda, the neighborhood association was not notified when the permit came up for consideration, and it was approved without their input.
Marana Planner Cindy de Leon says she visited the site in response to the neighborhood's concerns, but the town does not have the resources to investigate the matter any further.
While Rose is as fierce as any environmentalist in advocating protection of diminishing species like the ironwoods across the road, her vision for the future includes people in the landscape. She calls herself a developer, and has definite plans for her own 20 acres.
"I'm designing this site to carry most of the food, water and energy needs of six households, with community gardens and a building to use for classes in drylands living and planning," she says. "We plan to contribute as many resources as we use to the restoration of this site and the larger community. That's what adds up to sustainability."
A cooperative effort which included Rose's permaculture expertise, neighborhood participation and a willingness on the part of the Myers Group to consider alternatives could result in a new model for lower-impact water management strategies. It could provide data for other endeavors and possibly influence government codes regulating flood control.
But as workers continue their task of separating saguaros from the watershed that gave them life, it seems more likely that this developer will decide to impose his plan on the land in the usual way, destroying the life that's there and replacing it with hardscape. If so, students at the Purple Rocks Permaculture Community won't have to look far for the ultimate lesson in contrast.

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